We’re only hours from another Apple media event, and the pressure is on for them to deliver. Windows 7 has managed to make PCs less insufferable, the Nexus One is catching up with the iPhone, and App stores are old news. Amid all this, Apple wants to start making tablets and jump into the e-book market? Are they crazy? (The answer is: Yes. Crazy awesome.)

Folks, we’ve been here before. Over the years, Apple has faced stiff competition and introduced plenty of “latest creations”. Some made it big, while others should never have been made, and their futures definitely weren’t clear from the get go. Let’s take a deep breath and chillax with a look at some product announcements that changed the course of Apple history, though not always for the better. Remember, whatever happens Wednesday, it won’t be the end of the story––not by a long shot.

The iMac


Photo from GUIdebook

When Steve Jobs took his seat back at Apple in 1997, the company was in rough shape. Years of bleeding cash and a sub-sea level market share had taken their toll. Apple desperately needed a hit to put it back on the map, or else.

Flash forward to May 6, 1998, when Apple introduced the iMac. It wasn’t just a new Mac, it was a new kind of Mac. Familiar peripheral connections were kicked to the curb––along with the peripherals that used them––in favor of USB. Floppy disks were finally replaced by CD-ROMs and the Internet as means to move files. The iMac was Apple’s way of saying, “We’re here, we ignited the personal computer revolution, get used to it!” after years of playing it safe.

And it worked. At $1299, iMacs flew off the shelves and changed how the world viewed computers. While there was plenty of hand-wringing about its missing features, the original iMac struck a balance of price, looks, and convenience that still defines the best of what Apple is all about.

OS X



Apple needed more than great hardware to break with the past; it needed a great operating system. OS X was the answer, but it was a gamble. Unlike a new computer, a new Mac operating system had to satisfy all Mac users. Could Cupertino do it?

Nope, not at first. Apple announced OS X in 2000 and released a Public Beta later that year, but when 10.0 finally shipped on March 24, 2001, it was still missing basic features like disc burning and DVD playback. For some, OS X was a step backward from the fit and finish of the classic Mac OS. Others loved OS X’s next-gen technologies and 3D, “lickable” graphics––it was the Avatar of the computer world––but found there were limits to what the new OS could do.

“OS X is the future of the Mac,” Steve Jobs said, but he was only half right. Refined over the years, OS X has become a rock-solid foundation not only for the Mac’s growth, but for the iPhone and iPod touch as well.

The G4 Cube



Apple tried to catch lightning in a bottle again on July 19, 2000, when Steve Jobs proudly unveiled the G4 Cube to a thrilled keynote audience. The Cube seemed like the next step in Apple’s campaign to beautify computing, but not quite a year later, its day was done.

What happened? Only 150,000 sales, that’s what. The beautiful 8-inch Cube was a marvel of miniaturization, but customers wanted more than ingenious engineering for their $1799 and bought expandable PowerMacs or cheaper iMacs instead. Throw in PR problems over hairline cracks in the Cube’s casing, and the poor little guy never had a chance.

Maybe Apple should have killed the Cube outright instead of suspending production “indefinitely” in 2001. Today it lives on, but not how Steve hoped. Its shadow hangs over the MacBook Air, AppleTV, and any new product that makes enough people scratch their heads and wonder, “Who is this for?"


The iPod



When invitations for the October, 23, 2001 unveiling of a new Apple product teased, “It’s not a Mac,” buzz began about the long-awaited return of the Newton, the Apple PDA famously terminated by Steve Jobs. Instead, Steve introduced something nobody had asked for––an Apple music player.

We all know how that worked out. But at the time, a $400 price tag, lack of Windows support, and doubts about Apple’s ability to compete with tech giants like Sony raised eyebrows. Of course, the iPod went on to become a smash hit. It drove traffic to Apple’s newly opened retail stores, catapulted the company to the forefront of popular culture, and helped introduce the term “iPod killer”.

Even more than the original iMac, the iPod transformed Apple. Its success reinvented the company as more than just a struggling Windows competitor and paved the way for Apple’s growing consumer electronics empire. Time will tell if Wednesday’s event will have remotely the same impact as the iPod, but whatever is announced probably wouldn’t have been possible without it.

The iPhone

Riding high on the success of the iPod, iTunes Music Store, and swelling ranks of new Mac users, Apple could have played it safe at Macworld 2007. Instead, it jumped into a slightly competitive little market called the cell phone business.

Like the iPod, the iPhone immediately won praise for its fresh take on old tech. But its launch was far from trouble free. Lengthy activation hiccups, and a sudden price drop from $600, marred its launch. Complaints about the lack of third-party applications dogged Apple until the App Store opened a year later. It wasn’t until the release of the iPhone 3G that most grumbling died down...just in time for AT&T’s network to start buckling under the strain of so many new users.

Not quite three years later, the iPhone story is still being written. One thing’s for sure––the iPhone has made software cool. Combined with the full-to-bursting App Store, Apple’s tappable slab of glass and plastic has turned applications into things people want to enjoy all day long, like movies or music. That’s sleight-of-hand only Apple could perform.